


On The Line

by accidentallymelted



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 16:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallymelted/pseuds/accidentallymelted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of phone calls between Stacker Pentecost and Hercules Hansen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Line

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this is sort of nebulous, in that I wrote it while I didn't have internet to look things up and then liked it enough that I didn't want to change it too much to fit the arbitrary concept of canon time. So please be aware that the dates mentioned are approximate, and if you feel a different set of dates would work better you can let me know and I'll take it under advisement. Also, if anyone wants to tell me how to make Hansen sound more Australian I would love to hear it. :) Also, I wrote this for the Rangers square on my Pacific Rim Bingo Card (I wrote it a long time ago and am only just now getting around to posting it, oops).

_May 2015_

“So you did what?”

“Offered them a place in the program,” Stacker says, kicking off his boots with a grunt. “And before you tell me I’m crazy, take a look at the video I just sent you.”

There is a brief silence from the other end of the phone, punctuated by Herc’s frustrated grunts as he tries to access the video without hanging up. Stacker waits patiently until he hears the sudden inhale that means Herc has managed to bring up the video. “Shit,” he says, eventually. “The R&D guys are going to tear your head off.”

“Maybe,” Stacker allows. “But I don’t think so. The boys gave me a copy of some plans that I’m going to run by R&D, but I think they’re solid.”

Herc’s startled laugh makes Stacker smile as he leans back until he’s up against the wall. “They’re that in sync as street fighters, _and_ they’re good at engineering? How has the PPDC missed them?”

Stacker closes his eyes and makes a face. “They applied way back at the beginning, never got a call back,” he says. Herc’s silence speaks volumes about the amount of judgment he’s leveling against the PPDC’s origins, which were exclusionary at best until the world had finally figured out that all the money in the world couldn’t buy you Drift compatibility with someone. The recruiting drives had opened up considerably after that.

“To be fair, they probably wouldn’t have gotten a call back anyway,” Stacker says frankly, although he knows exactly what Herc is thinking because they have had this conversation multiple times. “There’s never been triplets in the program before.”

Herc snorts his opinion of that but changes the subject. “How’s Mako doing?”

Stacker grins involuntarily, proud. “She’s doing great. Picking up Chinese at a rate that shocks everyone else. She corrected my pronunciation yesterday. She’s also been hanging around the K-Science division, pestering Geiszler and Gottlieb – well. They say she’s no trouble, and I think Geiszler has been using her as a lab assistant. Gottlieb’s tutoring her in calculus.”

Herc groans at the thought. “Better her than me,” he says fervently, having been on the receiving side of Gottlieb’s temper on a number of occasions.

“Amen,” Stacker says solemnly, shuddering a little at the thought of spending so much time in the lab. He understands the importance of the K-Science division, but the thought of voluntarily spending the majority of his time down there makes his skin crawl. “How’s Chuck?” 

“Still not talking to me,” Herc says, tonelessly. Stacker winces sympathetically. “I get progress reports back from his teachers, sometimes. He’s failing a couple classes. I don’t know what to do – I try talking to him about it, but he just ignores me and locks me out.” Stacker hums a little in sympathy, but stays silent. After a few moments, Herc sighs and changes the subject again. “So your triplets – what are their names again?”

“The Wei brothers,” Stacker says. “Hu, Cheung and Jin.”

“Right. So they said yes when you offered them a place?”

“There was a little bit of posturing,” Stacker admits. “I don’t think they were impressed by the PPDC after their first experience with it. But they came around.”

“Well, that’s good. It’s getting late, I should get some sleep. I have a meeting with Chuck’s teachers early tomorrow.”

“Good luck,” Stacker says, and Herc lets out a half-hearted chuckle. “Good night, Hansen.”

“Night, Pentecost.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

_One Week Later_

“Did you ever read _Ender’s Game_ _?_ ”

Stacker squints at the clock. “Herc? We’re in the same time zone. It’s two A.M.”

“Did you?”

Stacker rolls over onto his back and sighs into the phone. “I think I did,” he says. “Wasn’t there a movie about it? And some sort of controversy?”

Herc snorts in agreement. “That’s the one. Controversy was about the author, not the book. The book is great. The author is a dick.”

“Oh right,” Stacker says as the details start filtering back into his sleep-addled brain. “It was about kids fighting aliens, right?”

“Right,” Herc says. “Kids went off to space to learn how to fight aliens, and the adults sat back and manipulated them the entire time.”

“Um,” Stacker says. “Herc?”

“It reminds me a little of us,” Herc says, sounding weary. “International threat, so the whole world bands together to fight. And then the kids get taken away from their parents and trained, and trained and trained – and you never heard about any of them ever going back, starting families, being _normal_ again.”

“Herc,” Stacker tries to interrupt again, but Herc is on a roll.

“And then after it’s done, after the threat is over, the whole world falls apart. Nothing keeping them together anymore, everyone starts trying to seize power-“

“Hansen!” Stacker roars down the phone, cutting him off. “It’s _fiction_. That means it’s not real. We don’t pull _kids_ , anyway – they have to be 18 to enlist. And they can leave whenever they want to.”

“None of them do.”

“But they _can_. Who’s going to stop them? Sure as hell isn’t going to be me. What brought this on, Herc?”

There is silence down the phone for a few minutes before Herc sighs. “Chuck enrolled in the Ranger Academy last week. Told me about it today. Well, yesterday, I guess.”

“Ah.” Stacker considers this information, then asks, cautiously, “Who’s he Drifting with?”

Herc lets out a choked laugh. “Me, Stacker. Who else?”

“Oh.” Stacker settles back against his pillows and thinks about that. “So is he talking to you again?”

“Not any more than usual.” Herc sounds bitter and clearly doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, so Stacker changes the subject.

“The Wei triplets did their first simulation drop today.”

“Yeah, that’s right, I heard that was happening. How’d it go?”

“Fastest kill on record,” Stacker says, proudly. He’d been sticking his neck out for the Wei brothers because he believed in them, even if no one else in the PPDC seemed to, and he’d been vindicated. The simulated Drift wasn’t nearly as all-encompassing as the real one, but it was a fairly accurate benchmark. Candidates who did well in simulated Drift most often did well in a real Drift, and the Wei’s success had silenced a number of their most vocal doubters. Not all of them, but enough that Stacker was confident that he would be able to push the start of construction of their Jaeger through so that it would be ready when they graduated the program. The PPDC’s lack of confidence in the Wei brothers had been obvious in how slow progress had been on that Jaeger.

“How fast?” Herc demands, and Stacker grins at his tone.

“They got it in just under five minutes.”

Herc whistles. “Damn. I knew they were good, but that is impressive. It shut anyone up?”

“Most people. Maybe I can get some real progress made on their Jaeger now.”

“Here’s hoping.”

“What about you? You ready to get back in the simulator?” His tone is joking, but he really is curious. Herc is silent for a moment, and his own tone straddles the line between joking and serious when he replies.

“Nah, yeah. I’ve got a new record to smash.”

“In your dreams, Hansen.”

“I’ll let you get back to yours. Night, Pentecost.”

“Night.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

_May 2023_

“She blew the Wei’s record out of the _water_.”

“I know, Stacker, I heard. Congratulations, she’s going to be a hell of a pilot. Any idea who she’ll be Drifting with?”

“Not yet.” Stacker leans back in his chair and stretches, twisting his back and wincing as his muscles protest his recent inactivity. “There’ve been rumors that the U.N.’s planning on shutting down our funding, so a lot of the less motivated candidates have been packing up and heading home.”

“I’d heard those rumors,” Herc says, deceptively casual. “Any truth to them, Marshal?”

Stacker scowls. “Unfortunately,” he says. “Building Jaegers to replace the ones we’ve been losing recently takes money that no one really has, and the fact that we’ve lost so many means that the U.N. has been making noises about finding a new strategy to cope with the Kaiju. There’ve been inspectors here looking over the candidates, making noises about switching up the curriculum.”

Herc laughs incredulously. “Switching up the curriculum? Has any of these inspectors ever _been_ in a Jaeger?”

Stacker’s mouth twitches. “Not a one of them,” he says, solemnly. “I had some pipsqueak in shiny shoes come up to me and try to give me pointers on the fighting style I should be teaching my Rangers. You could tell he’d never been in a fight in his life.”

“What’d you do with him?” Herc sounds amused, because he knows Stacker far too well.

“I sent him off to talk to the Kaidonovskys,” Stacker confesses. “From what I heard, they spent the whole time pretending they didn’t speak any English and laughing at him. You should have seen the look on his face,” he says, snickering a little at the memory. “When he first got a good look at them. He only came up to Sasha’s shoulders, Aleksis could have snapped him like a toothpick.”

“Did he?”

“Don’t think so, although they may have beaten some sense into him. He was stammering unintelligibly when he left, and I haven’t had a chance to ask Sasha what they did.”

“You’ll have to let me know when you find out, so I can use it when they come talk to me and Chuck. You know they will.”

“I don’t know that it’ll work for you,” Stacker says, thoughtfully. “You’re not as imposing as the Kaidonovskys, and you clearly speak English.”

“Nah, but I speak Australian, mate,” Herc says, thickening his accent to the point where even Stacker has a problem understanding him.

“If they’re from your area that won’t work,” he warns, then sighs. “It might, though, all the ones that were here were from the States.”

“Good,” Herc says grimly, then changes the subject. “Did I tell you Chuck adopted a dog?”

“He what now?” Stacker frowns at the phone as though Herc can see him. “A _dog?_ ”

“Yeah, he found a stray puppy hanging around after we’d just fought Narwhal. Brought it home with him. Cute little thing.”

“You let him keep it?”

“He housebroke it himself,” Herc says, sounding impressed and proud and confused all at once. “Takes it everywhere with him. Named it Max.”

“Is there room for a dog on base?” Stacker asks, feeling bewildered. Herc hums noncommittally.

“It’s not a big dog,” he says. “You should come visit, bring Mako.”

“I might,” Stacker says. “I was planning on heading over to that side of the ocean shortly anyway, I wanted to check up on the Wei brothers.”

“They’re doing well, your boys,” Herc says, and Stacker resists the urge to protest that they’re not his boys. They are in a way – he’d championed them all through their training and getting them their Jaeger, but after their first kill they hadn’t needed his help. He still likes to check up on them every now and then, but then he likes to check up on every active Jaeger crew now and then, to make sure that all of his Rangers are functioning at full capacity. He jots a note in his calendar to swing by the Australia dome to visit Herc and Chuck while he’s out there.

“I should be over your way in two weeks,” he says, glancing over his itinerary to double check. “Mako wasn’t going to come with me, but I bet she’ll come out if I tell her Chuck has a dog. She was going to stay and look over Gipsy’s shoulder while she’s being rebuilt.”

“How’s that little project coming along?”

“About as well as can be expected,” Stacker sighs. “Mako’s already had three fights with the project leader, who keeps treating her like she’s too young to know what she’s talking about.”

“To be fair, she _is_ young to be heading up the designs for that project. Not that she’s not the best person for the job.” Herc sounds contemplative. “Have you said anything?”

“Not yet. I won’t, either, if I can help it – she is young, but she’d old enough to do this. Which means that she needs to fight her own battles. And I don’t think she’d take too kindly to me stepping in on this.”

“I bet she wouldn’t.” Herc sounds indulgent, every bit Mako’s favorite adopted uncle. “Two weeks, huh. Well, we’ll be here unless something new pops up and they need Striker.”

“Gottlieb says that the odds are against it. He’s been mostly right so far.”

“Math,” Herc says dismissively. “Never did like it. But I’ll see you in two weeks, then.”

“See you,” Stacker says, hanging up the phone and shoving away from his desk. He needs to go get Mako and tell her about the dog, so she’ll have plenty of time to make up her mind if she wants to go with him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [accidentallymelted](http://accidentallymelted.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, where I will reblog lots of things and occasionally post snippets, writing updates or ask for prompts.


End file.
